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Meet: Terry Rager
Pilot
NASA Ames Research Center, Mt.View, CA
How I got here
I began to fly when I was 16 years old, in high school. My father was a fighter
pilot in World War II, so I guess flying was in my blood. But when I went to college,
I thought I was going to be a lawyer. I studied political science at U.C. Santa
Barbara. Then I went into the Air Force, and started flying C-141's, and I've
been on active duty or in the Reserves and flying ever since.
What I do
The "Project Pilot" is what we call the "Mother" - he's the primary pilot for
a project, and has to make sure all the other pilots are current and qualified,
and he's responsible for testing all new equipment or modifications that might
be done to the aircraft. I got involved in a lot of the flight testing for the
PFC [Editor's note: the passive flow control, see Sky Fever in the Teacher's Guide],
which is designed to keep things smooth as air passes over the open telescope
cavity. At NASA Ames I actually fly seven other kinds of aircraft in addition
to the Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO): including a DC8 which studies the atmosphere,
the C-130 and the Lear jet, which are used for remote sensing and mapping, and
an unusual craft called the YO3, a kind of glider with an engine that's very quiet,
and which we use to fly around helicopters and listen to the sound of their rotors!
Things can get tough!
When everything's working well, flying the KAO is a pretty easy mission. When
we're observing the object, we're flying a series of small turns to keep the telescope
properly aligned with the object the scientists want to study, flying a curve
to keep it on target. Winds are our biggest enemy, and if they're not as forecast
you're going drift off track. You have to think two or three objects ahead. Some
of our flights are pretty long, two to three times a week, 52 weeks a year, and
we're high up - 15% of flights at 45,000 feet, which means special training and
precautions for everyone on board - and when you get back down, you feel like
you've been through the ringer.
Before we put the PFC inside the KAO, there was definitely
much more drag, but I like to remind people we're not flying a normal aircraft
here. Of course, the cabin's pressurized, but we've got that hole in our side
for the telescope, and that's unpressurized and it does affect the structure.
We're flying a highly modified airframe.
Favorite mission
I think the most enjoyable missions I've been on were Shoemaker/Levy 9 and Comet
Halley. They took a lot of advanced planning and required very specific timing,
but they were unique events, and we had the opportunity to go see them!
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